1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hinge device composing a lid body in an openable/closable manner with respect to a main body and further composing the lid body in a turnable manner in the direction orthogonal to the opening/closing direction, and a small-sized electronic equipment such as a notebook personal computer, a laptop personal computer, a camera, a camcorder, or a cellular phone that uses the hinge device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Among the above-mentioned various electronic equipment, there is conventionally known in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei10-340134 (Patent document 1) an electronic equipment of a compatible structure in which a display unit such as a liquid crystal display device, a plasma display device, a lid body, or the like (hereinafter simply referred to as a “lid body”) is mounted in an openable/closable manner to a main body having an in-built key board section and control unit, and the lid body is further structured in a turnable manner in the direction orthogonal to the opening/closing direction when the lid body is opened at a prescribed angle with respect to the main body, by coupling between the main body and the lid body with a hinge device composed of two shafts being orthogonal to each other.
However, among others, these electronic equipment have a problem, in that a lock means for locking the lid body in a closed state with respect to the main body is exposed on an outer surface, so that the lock means contacts with the surface of a housing of the main body (the surface in which the key board section is mounted in the case of the notebook personal computer) when the lid body is opened, and at the same time, the housing of the main body and the lock means tend to be damaged.
As a solution to the above-described problem, it is possible to conceive one obtainable by devising the structure or the arrangement of the lock means, or so forth, however, there is another problem of reducing space for mounting the lock means on the back of the demand for downsizing and weight saving in the overall equipment even in a small-sized electronic equipment based on a potable use such as the notebook personal computer or the like, as well as, as a matter of course, in extremely small-sized electronic equipment such as a cellular phone. Therefore, as in the case of the general cellular phone of a twofold type, even in the other electronic equipment, there is an effort to try to realize a latchless mechanism that enables a locked state without exposing or protruding the lock means on the surface of the main body or the lid body.
The latchless mechanism mentioned here means a structure in which, when the lid body is turned in a closing direction with respect to the main body at a reference angle or below, the closing state is further accelerated in the turning direction, and the most primitive structure thereof is that comes to the closing state by the weight of the lid body itself with the use of the hinge device of a cam/distortion hinge structure. In recent years, however, that provided with a biasing member such as a spring or that has a devised locking structure is common for the reason of letting a user have a click feeling (letting the user feel that it is closed determinably), or so forth.
Notwithstanding the above, in the case of the above-mentioned electronic equipment of the compatible structure, the closing operation of the lid body and the main body may be performed in an irregular state (in the state in which the lid body is swung left or right), so that to incorporate the latchless mechanism into the compatible structure raises a new problem that the lid body and the main body possibly clashes strongly in the irregular state, in other words, the equipment is of a structure easily damaged by the clash of the display/main body more than ever (than those having no latchless mechanism).
As a solution to this problem, in the previously-mentioned Patent document 1, the lid body is structured to be lifted upward to realize a turn in the horizontal direction by artfully devising the structure, arrangement, locking relation, and so on between the lid body and the main body.
Further, as the other solutions to the problem, those in which the turn in the open/close direction (for opening/closing the lid) is restricted depending on the turn state in the horizontal direction (swing state), in which, contrary thereto, the turn in the horizontal direction (swing) is restricted depending on the rotation state (the open/close state of the lid) in the open/close direction, in which, further, above-described both the restrictions are adopted to solve the problem (solution by limiting the turn), or so forth are conceivable. As a specific mechanism structure of the above one adopting both the restrictions, for example, that in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No.2001-227229 (Patent document 2) is known.
In the above-described Patent document 1, there is no disclosure about the means for restricting the rotation of the lid body in the open/close direction until the lid body is opened at a prescribed angle with respect to the main body; the means for restricting the vertical turn of the lid body when the lid body is in the state of being turned horizontally; nor the previously-described latchless mechanism, so that there were cases where the lid body is turned while it is not opened sufficiently and where the lid body is closed while it is not horizontally turned at an angle of 180 degrees, leaving problems that the lid body and the main body are easily damaged thereby, and they are easily damaged also by the lock mechanism.
That disclosed in the above-described Patent document 2 is structured such that a hinge device to be provided between a lid body and a main body is composed of a first shaft member provided to a mounting member provided in the main body and a second shaft member provided in a supporting member provided in the lid body in which the first and second shaft members are provided in a turnable manner with respect to a bracket, and in which a means for restricting a turn of the bracket composed of: a recession formed at the outer periphery of the first shaft member to accommodate a tip of the second shaft member to allow the second shaft member to turn freely, a protrusion formed at the tip of the second shaft member, and an outer peripheral groove formed at the outer periphery of the first shaft member continuously to/from the recession to accommodate the protrusion to allow the second shaft member to turn freely around the first shaft member while restricted to turn around the axis thereof. Note that, for the hinge device in Patent document 2, no description is given as to the latchless mechanism, however, when incorporating the latchless mechanism into this hinge device of Patent document 2, it is considered to be the most common that the mechanism is provided on the first shaft member which restricts the second shaft member and vice versa (mutually affecting to/from the protrusion formed at the tip portion of the second shaft member and the like).
Such a hinge device has a mechanism in which the respective parts are gathered at one place, so that a quality defective leads to replacement or decomposition of the entire hinge device, causing higher production and quality costs problem. The small-sized electronic equipment is restricted in a thickness direction in an effort to reduce the thickness, however, they are not restricted so much in the lateral direction, so that it should be taken into account that the hinge device is not required to be gathered at one place therein.